Many educated speakers on various secessionist agitations describe the agitators as jobless people, who should find something to do. The ‘educated’ speakers maintain that secessionist agitators are either angry, hopeless or jobless Nigerians. A look at some of these rallies confirms the commentators’ descriptions. Most people who engage in agitations are truly angry and jobless Nigerians, many of who have nothing more to lose than their impoverished lives. Yet, the ‘educated’ commentators failed to check the causes of their anger and joblessness.
The shame of widespread joblessness among work-ready citizens of a society is not reserved for the citizens. On the contrary, the higher the rate of unemployment in a state, the more the leaders should be ashamed of their titles. God gives every society both human and natural resources to satisfy their needs in the society. Each society works to train and organize its citizens to develop and maximize its resources for common good. The style of organization for efficiency is agreed by all as foundation of their society, and handed over to some people as leaders to coordinate.
Unfortunately, Nigeria’s foundation was not laid on the people’s agreement, but on the colonial force for merging unconsented kingdoms and communities for exploiting human and natural resources. And before leaving at independence, the colonialists handed over this exploitative system to their former local assistants to continue the colonial project of exploitation. Since then, the postcolonial regimes in Nigeria have been creating various acts[1][2] to distract the various people from the seizure of their lands and resources. Hence, the government seizes any land with mineral resources for the foreign companies to exploit. Yet, the government fails to take care of the totality of the citizens whose lands and resources they seize for foreigners.
Societies flourish when citizens are able to produce what they consume mainly from their resources. Even when they do not have local resources, they develop their ability to process the resources they import from others. But when citizens of a society do not have access to mineral resources (local or foreign) for production, they stay idle. They become dependent and thus greedy with the insufficient items from importation. Because there is no access to resources for production, these people remain poor, desperate and jobless Nigerians.
Old school teachers say that an idle mind is the devil’s workshop, abi na lawn-tennis court. In the state of poverty, desperation and joblessness, people are disposed to follow anybody with a better promise; whether the new messiah is true or fake. So, commentators who think they criminalize agitators by calling them jobless Nigerians desperately require better thoughts on government’s socio-economic responsibilities. Though government can never create all the jobs, government can create a conducive environment for individuals to own and use their lands and resources to create sufficient employment in production, distribution and administering of their products and services.
You say they should find something to do abi? Engage three of them in a real interview to appreciate the resilience of the men described as jobless Nigerians.
[1] Nigerian Mineral and Mining Act, 2007
[2] Land Use Act, 1978